


Sleep Paralysis, or Whatever Davey Called It

by dyingpoet



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Canon Era, Family Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sort Of, anyway they got that fuckin uhhhhh childhood trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24499528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Sometimes Race wakes up and he can't move. Most of the time he's quiet about it, sometimes he's not.
Relationships: Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	Sleep Paralysis, or Whatever Davey Called It

**Author's Note:**

> bet this fandom thought i was dead huh :)

Race couldn’t breathe.

That was his first thought upon waking up, with not being able to move as a close second. Briefly, he felt himself start to panic and force himself to move an arm or a leg or  _ anything _ -

_ “Calm down, breathe.”  _ It wasn’t the first time he’d woken up from a dream like that, where he couldn’t move and it felt like something was sitting on top of his chest. Davey said it had an official name or something when he asked him about it, saying it was happening to one of the boys instead of himself, but he hadn’t bothered to remember what it was. 

All he knew was to  _ never  _ open his eyes, and try and focus enough on waking up without panicking. Both of those lessons were awful to learn. It started happening in the Refuge, and even after he got out they kept happening.

The first few weeks back were the worst. There were times when he woke up and he could tell he was in the lodging house but if he looked he could  _ see  _ Synder’s shadow like it was real. 

He’d only ever mentioned it to Albert once. He tried to understand when Race told him but it ended with him looking at Race like he was crazy and Race sulking in Brooklyn for the rest of the day. After that he didn’t tell anyone else, and that was a good couple years ago. 

For now he was squeezing his eyes shut and trying to breathe. There were noises that he knew weren’t real, there always were, and he hated it but he could feel his heart pick up every time it happened. He’d never admit it but they scared the shit out of him, especially when they were voices.

Tonight they weren’t though, it just sounded like he was out on the street on a busy day, in a sort of twisted way, like all the sounds at once were coming through a funnel into his ears. 

Slowly, he started breathing normally and the weight on his chest started to fade, and the noise got quieter and quieter until he finally was able to lift one of his arms. 

The second he did he shot up, it happened every time, and put his head in his hands to try and muffle his breathing, which had gone from normal to gasping once he could move and the fear  _ really  _ set in. 

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t  _ real _ , he was  _ here _ , he was  _ safe _ , he was in  _ bed _ . 

“Fuckin’ Christ-”

His chest cut him off and he was starting to cry in spite of himself. He _hated_ crying, he didn’t need to be crying because it wasn’t _real_ ; he wasn’t back there, he _knew_ he wasn’t but he couldn’t help it. It was shit. 

Over the years he’d learned how to pipe down whenever he was crying, it wasn’t worth waking anybody else up, but he hissed when he started tasting copper and stopped biting his lip. He brought his hand up to wipe at it and winced a little; it came back with blood. 

“Race?”

Race flinched when a hand came down softly on his shoulder and he figured he looked like a cornered dog or something from the way Jack was looking at him when he turned his head. “Hey-” he cut himself off to take a deep breath and try and wipe his face discreetly. It didn’t work. “Hey, Jack.”

Jack stared at him for a second and Race tried to get his composure while he took the other in. He still looked like he was blinking away sleep, and he’d definitely just crawled out of bed. Normally he didn’t worry about Jack because he slept up on the roof. Everyone else was a heavy enough sleeper, and he was quiet enough, where they didn’t wake up. Jack woke if someone so much as whimpered in their sleep. 

“You wanna go up onto the roof? Get some air?” Jack asked softly after a moment. 

It wasn’t really a question. If Race didn’t Jack would sit with him until he told him anyway, and at least if he went up on the roof nobody else would wake up. Jack knowing was bad enough. 

“Yeah, sure,” Race answered, voice rasping a little and he cleared his throat. Jack kept a hand on his shoulder the whole way to the fire escape and let Race climb up the ladder to the roof first. He didn’t say anything but he was close enough that Race could feel him there. There was a part of him that didn’t like that Jack knew that was comforting; another part was comforted and he let that one lead. 

Race walked right up to the side of the roof as soon as he got up and tried to figure out anything other than what happened to tell Jack. He didn’t come up with shit, but thinking about it had gotten his hands trembling and Jack must’ve noticed.

“Hey, buddy, s’okay, c’mon.” Jack’s voice was over his shoulder again and Race turned around and leaned back against the rail of the building and gripped it to stop his hands. Jack raised an eyebrow. “You don’t gotta act tough about it, ain’t nobody up here but you ‘n me.”

“S’fine,” Race replied, but it sounded weak even to him. His voice was still shaky and he had a cold sweat going from going out into the chill so fast. “M’fine.”

Jack rolled his eyes and grinned slightly, pleading, when Race kept his resolve and bit his lip. Once he gasped at that, he forgot he split it inside, Jack dropped the hands-off act and moved forward, grabbing Race’s wrist gently when he went to pick at the cut. 

“You do that yourself, when ya woke up?” 

Race white-knuckled the railing behind him but still nodded, dropping his head. Jack was real good at cornering you into admitting something was wrong, even if they both already knew there was, and it felt like someone let all the air out of him once he admitted it. 

“I ain’t gonna know what happened ‘til ya tell me, kiddo.”

Jack got a half-hearted glare at that, he’d sworn to stop calling Race any form of ‘kid’ years ago after Race wouldn’t stop whining that they were  _ basically  _ the same age, and they both let out a weak chuckle a second later and the tension dropped. 

“I, uh,” Race took a breath and opted to look at the ground instead of the older newsie, “I just woke up from a dream s’all.”

“Nightmare?”

Race shook his head and took his hand off the railings to pop his knuckles. “Naw, don’t even remember the dream really, just, after.”

He trailed off and looked up at Jack, who nodded slightly for him to continue. “I dunno, you ever get where ya wake up and ya can’t move? And ya hear stuff and  _ see  _ stuff that ain’t really there but it  _ feels  _ like it is?”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth Race felt his face get hot and he wished he could take it back. If he’d lied and said it was a nightmare that could’ve been it, he sounded crazy now. 

“Couple times, yeah.”

Race looked up and frowned, unsure, but Jack looked awful serious and he wasn’t one to lie, not to any of them anyway. “Yeah?”

Jack nodded and shrugged, like it wasn’t any less normal than getting up in the morning. “Yeah, mostly right afta I got outta the Refuge. That’s when it started fer you?”

“Inside too.”

“Shit.” Jack’s eyes softened and Race let his shoulders drop when he nodded. It was all out on the table. “It happen a lot?”

Race shrugged and crossed his arms, it was only October but it was the middle of the night and the wind cut right through you. “Couple times a month maybe, more sometimes.”

Jack nodded and Race knew right then he was telling the truth about getting the whatever the hell they were called too. There wasn’t much to say. They were scary, they  _ scared  _ him, and he couldn’t do much about it, not now, and neither could Jack. 

That’d never really stopped Jack in the past though. 

“C’mon.” Jack slung an arm over Race’s shoulders and led them both to the ladder, going down first and letting Race follow. 

At first he was so rattled about the dream and waking up and trying to look fine when he wasn’t that the tiredness hadn’t even really hit him. Now that he’d said what he said to Jack, and he didn’t look at him like he was out of his damn mind, he was dead on his feet. Something about secrets being heavy, Davey said it once. 

He walked in front of Jack back into lodging, arms wrapped around himself to get rid of the chill once he was back inside. 

Wordlessly, Jack led him back to his bed instead of Race’s; that part wasn’t new. Both of them had nightmares their whole lives and it was an unspoken promise that if they needed it they could sleep with the other if they needed it. All the boys did it, as a matter of fact, and Jack and the rest of the older boys made sure nobody caught shit for it. 

Jack went to get Race’s blanket while Race flopped down on one side of the bed, sinking into the paper thin mattress and shutting his eyes. If he didn’t know better he’d think Jack had an extra mattress for how nice his always seemed to feel. It was probably more to do with Race always being dead tired than the bed, but still.

“Make yourself at home why don’tcha,” Jack snarked softly from above him and Race grinned and cracked open his eyes when Jack threw his blanket over his face and ruffled his hair once he laid down himself. 

“I try my best.”

Jack had his back to Race but snorted all the same. “I know it. G’night, kid.”

Race kicked Jack’s calf lightly and ignored Jack’s chuckle. “G’night.”

He didn’t say thank you before he fell asleep, and Jack didn’t expect him too either. They were brothers, they didn’t have to, and Race fell asleep without needing a word. 

**Author's Note:**

> done for @gczebos on tumblr!!! love u and i hoped u liked it!!!
> 
> kudos/comments are v much appreciated i havent written for this fandom in forever and i hope i did it justice :((
> 
> find me on tumblr @dying-poet !!!!


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